


Fracture

by newwaves



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Maquis, Multi, Tom is a little asshole but hopefully he'll grow out of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2020-10-10 05:02:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 21,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20522363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newwaves/pseuds/newwaves
Summary: When ex-Golden Boy Tom Paris is kicked out of Starfleet for a mission that goes wrong he's left feeling spiteful and resentful. After blagging his way into the Maquis and finding himself aboard the Val Jean, can he find himself a place there? Can he forgive himself for what he's done?





	1. Chapter 1

“No. It’s too risky.”

Chakotay stood with his hands on his hips, dressing Tom down as if he were some lowly ensign on his first shift. Tom _hated_ it. Tom paced the room. He was in Chakotay's quarters. He hated them, too. In fact, he rather hated everything about the _Val Jean_ and the Maquis. The _Val Jean_ was a dingy little ship, it's complement barely larger than a Starfleet training vessel. It wasn't a _real_ ship in Tom's eyes. Out of everything, Tom hated Chakotay the most. Tom thought him angry and irrational. How could he call himself a captain without any of the training? Who the hell was he to call himself that? What had he done to deserve such a title? The crew - the section of the Maquis under Chakotay's leadership - were hypocrites. Tom couldn't understand how they could fight for something that had nothing to do with them. That wasn't courage, that was cowardice. Tom had always boasted about how he'd never be seen dead in their situation, how they were nothing more than self-important assholes with God complexes. And yet, here he found himself a fresh member of the Maquis, pacing his "Captain's" quarters, demanding that he should be the one to risk his life for them. 

“But I’m telling you that I can do it!” 

“And_ I_ am telling you that you can’t. We can’t afford to risk it. We’re barely scraping by with what we have as it is.”

“I know what I’m doing. I _can _do this. You have to let me try.”

“Listen to me. It’s too risky. We go in, we get the supplies we can. They last us a month or so, and then we do another raid somewhere else. We can’t afford to spend more time there than necessary; we can’t afford to get caught. Starfleet are thinning us out, haven’t you heard? I can’t take any more losses.” Chakotay scolded him, spoke down to him as if he were a child. Tom was outraged. How dare he? How dare _anyone_ talk to him like that? It'd barely been months since he'd been the Golden Boy of his own ship, a _real_ ship. He'd been the best ensign they would ever see and it'd all been fucked up. And now he was here. 

He took a deep breath. He couldn't let the spite slip off his tongue. 

“Okay.” He choked. 

He sat alone in the mess hall, furious. He stabbed angrily at the plate of TKL rations in front of him. He barely touched it, moving the slop from one side of his plate to the other until it looked even less appetising. Why did everything about this place have to be so dire? The few crew members also present in the mess sat in sombre silence. That was the one thing he was grateful for here - no one noticed if you were angry because they all were. No one was here by choice; no one wanted to still be fighting the Cardassians. He could understand the anger from his Bajoran comrades - of course, they would still be fighting, he understood their plight. But, everyone else? What stake did they have in this? He supposed it was ridiculous to think about the crew as if he wasn’t part of it now, but if he was being honest he didn’t see himself as part of it. He could empathise with the Bajorans but the Klingons? the Bolians? the Vulcans? What place was theirs?

He shouldn’t have been here anyway. He should still be on the _Exeter_. He should be getting promoted and rubbing shoulders with high powered admirals.

_You still could be if you weren’t such a fuck up. _

Tom shook the thought from his head. It wasn’t his fault that no one else would listen to him. It hadn’t been his fault what had happened. He hadn’t meant for any of it. If people just listened to him everything would be okay.

If Chakotay would listen to him he’d realise how valuable Tom could be. He didn’t understand how Chakotay could miss the point so clearly. It was Tom that had been on a Federation ship mere months ago, it was Tom that knew the security sweeps and the gaps in their shields; it was Tom who was _right_.

He knew that Chakotay knew he was a valuable resource. Valuable enough to still be able to go on the supply mission at least.

When he finished eating he decided to return to his quarters. The _Val Jean _having such a small complement meant that there were no specific shifts that the crew had to stick to, outside of splitting the crew in half to cover day and night shift anyway. Tom normally worked in the mornings, doing something menial, biding his time until they let him anywhere near the helm. He hadn’t been successful yet. The door to his quarters kid open and the light flickered on. His roommate wasn’t in, thank God. The ship being so small meant that all crew except Chakotay had to cabin share. Another thing to add to the list of things he hated about being here.

Although, he had to admit he could have got it worse. Wilson - his bunkmate - was a decent guy. Tom sometimes lay awake at night wondering if in a different situation they could have been friends, or maybe even something more.

Wilson was tall, traditionally handsome; funny. Despite himself, Tom had laughed at his jokes on more than one occasion. Tom didn’t hate his presence. But, right now, Tom could not be gladder that he wasn’t here.

He collapsed onto his cot, still in his clothes from the day.

Sleep greeted him like an enemy, pulling him into a rough embrace.


	2. Chapter 2

He awoke with a start, his head pounding; disoriented. For a moment in the warmth of the dark, he forgot where he was. He was in his quarters on the _Exeter_, waking up to start his morning shift, about to grab breakfast with Ensign Blake. The shallow snoring of Wilson in the bunk next to him brought him back to reality. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat him, rubbing his hands down his face. Today would be better, he told himself. After showering and shoving on whatever clothes he could find that were clean he made his way to the mess hall. He had time to waste. The raid wasn’t until 1200. He’d prove himself today. He knew he could. He knew he _would_.

He poured himself a coffee, black. He bypassed the rations. It’s not like he would’ve eaten them anyway. He shifted the lukewarm mug around the table. It was covered in ring marks from other drinks. Teas, coffees, soups, he looked at one particularly sticky ring in the left corner - a Romulan ale, he decided. That must have been one lucky raid.

He could picture the crew, smashing glasses of the blue liquid into each other, swigging until their heads were fuzzy. He wondered if they saw the hypocrisy in it - revelling in celebration with the drink from Romulus, when here they were, trying to fight Cardassians. He amused himself with the thought that in another twenty years the cycle would repeat itself, the same group of people would be here, celebrating with jugs of Kanar, fighting some as yet unknown enemy; forgetting the past.

He wiped the dregs of his coffee, moving to the counter to refill it before returning to his small table.

He watched as morning passed and crew members wandered in and out of the hall, chatting amongst themselves. Shovelling down their rations and weak coffees. They moved in a blur around him. He was static. Immovable. People around him span in and out of his orbit, jostling his table. Nodding at him. Avoiding eye contact altogether. He was a pariah sitting in the corner. Too angry for Starfleet, not determined enough for the Maquis. He was nowhere. But he would prove himself today.

He would.

Five coffees later it was time for Tom to report to the cockpit - it was barely 10 square feet, he refused to refer to it as a bridge, no matter what anyone else said. He greeted Chakotay with a curt nod, ignoring the eyes of the rest of the crew. There were four of them in total: him, Chakotay, a Klingon woman he hadn’t met before, and a stern-looking Vulcan woman.

He knew the game-plan - Chakotay’s anyway - their informant on the Federation vessel would tell them when it was safe, they’d hide the _Val Jean_ underneath the ship, three of them would beam aboard, get their supplies and get the hell out of there before anyone had realised what was happening.

The Vulcan woman - Veral he now knew her to be - was the muscle, Chakotay was the brains, and the Klingon woman whose name he still didn’t know was lookout. Tom had been entrusted to play the getaway driver.

Chakotay reminded them of their roles as they edged closer to the ship. It’s vast frame filled the viewscreen.

Ambassador class, Tom noticed.

Next to him, Veral smirked.

“Captain Braswell won’t know what hit her.”

“Braswell? Wait, that’s the Exeter?”

Chakotay didn’t speak, his jaw clenched.

“You didn’t say it was the Exeter!”

A beat.

“This is it! You have to let me help, you have to let me try my way! I know this ship!”

“No.”

“But, this is our chance! We could have double the supplies! You have to let me!”

“Tom, don’t make me remind you of our conversation before. It is not happening. You’ll get us all killed. This is exactly why I didn’t tell you it was the Exeter. Just do as we planned. Okay?”

Silence.

“Okay?” Louder.

“Okay.” Barely a whisper.

Chakotay nodded, satisfied. They were ready to go. They were in position.

Crouched in the middle of the cockpit, the three raiders were poised, salvaged arms at the ready. Tom was ready, finger over the button to transport them as soon as they received the cue. Chakotay stopped suddenly, a change of heart apparent.

“B’Elanna,” he indicated towards the Klingon woman, “you stay here and man the helm, Paris, you’re coming with me.”

“What?!” B’Elanna - he knew her name now- was incredulous.

“What?” he was in disbelief himself.

“You said so yourself, you know the ship better than us. You are not to leave my side the entire time. You do anything wrong and you’re out of here.”

Tom simply nodded, silently moving himself into the space B’Elanna had just left.

A light flashed on the helm.

“It’s time.”

He watched as B’Elanna begrudgingly smashed at the transport, as his vision blurred momentarily and sharpened on the inside of a cargo bay.

He stood, slack-jawed in disbelief. He was really back on the _Exeter._ The muted greys and soft pastels of the decor caused an involuntary pang in his chest that he hated himself for.

Chakotay elbowed him in the ribs, bringing him back to his senses. They began pushing barrels of supplies into the space they had vacated, compiling at least one of everything,

Veral carrying the impossibly heavy-looking crates with ease.

Chakotay beckoned Tom to the far corner of the bay, toward a collection of barrels. Tom positioned himself behind the one nearest him, pushing his whole weight against it. It was heavier than he had expected. Chakotay was moving another barrel with ease. He needed more purchase. Pushing the balls of his feet into the floor, he rammed his right shoulder into the barrel. It budged. He rammed it again. A deep croaking sound escaped the barrel. He watched the colossus tip in slow-motion, as he watched on, paralysed. It hit the ground with a tremendous _thunk_.

A shrieking alarm erupted through the speakers, piercing his eardrums and echoing around the cavernous cargo bay. Chakotay looked over at him, daggers in his eyes. 

The game was over. Their presence was known. It was now or never. Before he was fully aware of what was happening, his legs were carrying him out of the room at breakneck speed. He raced down the corridor, ducking and diving between the shocked crew members going about their day. He reached the end of the corridor, skidding to a halt before he slammed into engineering. It was empty, just as he knew it would be. It was nothing but a skeleton crew. He crashed into the room, gathering whatever supplies he could. He haplessly slammed at the nearest console he could find, attempting to divert the ship away from the calamity at hand. He frantically shoved whatever he could find lying around into his pockets, scrabbling around the room. His back was turned, slamming at a wall panel, attempting in vain to disengage the still frantic alarm. A _whoosh_ sounded behind him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He shot out of the room and back down the corridor like his life depended on it. Right now, he thought his life might very well depend on it. He careened down the corridor, crashing through into the cargo bay just as Veral disappeared in fizzing lights. Chakotay still stood, weapons poised, next to the rest of their loot, waiting for his cue. Tom skidded next to him, sweat beading on his brow. He could hear the distant hiss of a transporter beam starting. The doors slammed open. A figure in gold. A flash. A shock in his shoulder; his knee. He shuddered. His vision crackled; his stomach in his throat. His feet made contact with the ground again. He crumbled to the floor.

“What the _hell_ did you think you were doing?” Chakotay screamed back at him from the cockpit, where he was already attempting to duck and weave the _Val Jean_ out of the way of the oncoming storm.

He dropped to the ground, the excruciating pain in his leg and shoulder crippling him, his eardrums screamed; his vision was blurred. Lights danced across his eyelids, and the screaming in his ears jumped an unbearable three octaves. He couldn’t control it – he vomited violently on to the ship’s floor. He rolled onto his back, blood and sick matting his hair, and could vaguely make out a figure squatting over him. In the distance, beyond the screaming in his ears, he could hear voices shouting over each other. He couldn’t be positive but he thought that on more than one occasion he heard his own voice shouting too. Something cold pressed against his neck. Cold, but familiar. He wasn’t sure what it was. A gentle _whoosh_ escaped it and he felt a recognisable tingling pressure in his neck. _A hypospray_, he realised, just as everything went dark.


	3. Chapter 3

Tom startled awake, nearly rolling off the cot beneath him before he caught himself. He tried to sit up on the ledge but his head felt bleary. A dull ache spiked through his left shoulder and leg as he rearranged his body. _Why did he ache so much?_ He rubbed his eyes, trying to force some of the bleariness away before he suddenly realised he wasn’t in his quarters. The room was much smaller, the cot shoved up against the far wall, a small sink in the opposite corner under a grimy mirror, and a small expanse covered by a force field. _Why was he in the brig?_

His head thundered. His throat burnt; metal and acid. His hair was flat to his forehead with sweat.

He staggered to the makeshift sink, turning on the tap and dunking his whole head under it. He let the cold water rush through his hair, up his nostrils; over his eyes. Cleansing him. His body ached beneath him, he was barely standing.

The water stings as it pours over his cheeks. Beating needles of ice into his face. He’s reminded of driving rain in winter. For a bleak moment, he misses San Francisco.

“You’re awake.”

A voice from beyond the force field.

She sat at the far end of the room, her legs crossed the way a man would - her left ankle resting on her right thigh. Her arms were crossed across her chest; her head titled slightly.

“What happened?” his face was numb from the water, his lips swollen. His words came out slurred, turning his perfectly eloquent question into the slightly less eloquent _worrappent? _

The woman scoffed, uncrossing her legs before resting her elbows atop her knees, hands clasped in front of her, staring down at the pathetic man on the floor before her. Her eyes bored into him.

“B’Elanna” he remembered her name. Once more his face - still deprived of physical sensation - rendered his words into garbled nonsense. _B’Elanna _was what he had said but something closer to _banana _was what left his mouth.

_“Do you know why you’re here?”_

She was speaking again. The woman. _B’Elanna. _Tom blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision. He shook his head to try and clear the cobwebs from it. It was a bad idea. His brain felt like soup, sloshing against the sides of his skull with each movement. Nausea cracked through him like lightning. He attempted to pull himself up from the floor – He didn’t remember falling? Maybe he’d always been on the floor? Had he crawled his way over here? Why was he so far from the sink? When did that happen? – His arms gave way beneath him. His face smashed down onto the gritty stained carpet. His forearms stung as they scraped along the coarse wool. He tried to cry out in pain but he wasn’t sure he could trust his voice anymore.

He tried to move but his body betrayed him. He lay crumpled on the floor. He looked up at B'Elanna, her mouth was moving. Tom squinted, willing his brain to listen. 

_"Chakotay wants to speak to you."_

_Who? _What had happened? Why couldn't he remember anything? He wanted to ask B'Elanna what had happened but he knew how well that had gone the last time. Instead, he closed his eyes. 

* * *

The second time that Tom woke up that day he was lying on the floor. His body ached like anything. He slowly tried to lift himself up, his face unsticking from the carpet with a ripping sting. He sat upright, wiping the dry drool from his cheek. Pain shot through his neck as he tried to move it. He rubbed it timidly, it was ruined. 

_It's almost like there's a reason people sleep in beds and not on the floor_, he thought, morosely. Why was he on the floor?

He looked around as much as his neck would allow him to. Oh, right, _the brig_. 

He remembered, then. The mission. Being shot. 

He raised a hand to his wounded shoulder, the skin still felt hot. He could feel the pus-filled blisters, the burnt skin; the dried blood. He traced the blisters with his fingers, they felt delicate and smooth. They stung as he touched them. He moved his fingers across, following the pattern of blood. The blood had congealed and started to scab. The scabs felt so different from the blisters - solid and bumpy beneath his skin. He looked down at his legs. He'd been shot in both knees. At least being on the floor made sense now. With his working arm, he worked to drag himself back over to the sink. He grabbed the towel - well, it was more of a rag but beggars couldn't be choosers - and dunked it under the stream of water. He dabbed at the wound on his right knee, wincing as the towel made contact with his skin. He clenched his jaw, trying to think of anything - _anything_ \- but the excruciating pain that sparked through him. His eyes watered and he bit hard into his bottom lip to nix any cry of pain that might escape him. What had happened to the hypospray? Why hadn't his wounds been treated? Did the Val Jean not have a doctor? That was a stupid question. Of course, they didn't. He knew that. He figured that was why they'd left him here, in the brig, to tend his own wounds like an injured dog, his own sick still matted into his hair. 

He deserved it, though. He knew he did. This was the sort of thing he deserved. After everything he'd done, this was exactly what he deserved. He threw the towel against the force field, watching the empty space shimmer blue as the towel hit it. It dropped to the floor in front of him, a slight smell of singed hair. Tom groaned and lay himself back down on the floor. This was what he deserved. He was going to die in the brig of some shitty Maquis ship and he had only himself to blame.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things still aren't looking too good for Tom...

It was three days before Chakotay came to see him. Or, at least, Tom thought it was - he’d lost the concept of time. The only measure of time he had was the meals he’d been brought. He’d counted eleven so far and as far as Tom could work out - depending on how many meals in a day you expected - it could’ve been anywhere between three days and five and a half. He wasn’t totally sure he’d done his math right, however.

Chakotay walked into the room - _swaggered, _Tom thought bitterly. Tom had been laying down on his cat but as he watched the man enter he shot up to a sitting position. His back was poker straight, his hands folded in his lap. His eyes followed Chakotay across the room; he was a cat watching their prey. He knew he should be the one that felt like the mouse as he sat there in the brig, but he wasn’t. He was in control. He needed to show Chakotay that he wasn’t scared. He could throw Tom in the brig but he would never win.

He could feel his pupils turn into vertical slits, he could feel his head moving almost imperceptibly as he traced Chakotay’s movements. He was in control. He was the one with the power.

The air between them was thick, yet Tom sat there, near suffocating in the heavy silence. He wouldn’t speak first, he wouldn’t let the other man have that. So he watched him; stared at him. His head cocked to the side and he studied Chakotay. His scuffed boots - he should have thrown away years ago. His dark trousers - baggy in all the wrong places and made of what looked like old curtains. His shirt - old and stained. His waistcoat - was that _wool_? Hmm.

Tom had lost track of time and nearly his mind but as he looked out at the so-called Captain of this so-called ship, he almost felt sorry for him. His clothes were old. He could see the start of lines in his forehead and grey flecked amongst his jet-black hair. He looked tired. He looked desperate.

And yet, the second Chakotay began to speak all signs of sympathy flooded from Tom as if someone had broken a water bank. He was full of venom and vitriol again.

“You disobeyed my orders.”

That was it. That was what Chakotay said. He had said it so simply, so serenely. It was simply a fact. There was no emotion behind it, not even anger. It was just a plain statement of truth.

Tom hated that.

“They knew we were there, we had an opportunity to get more supplies, more tools - things we _need._”

Shit. He hadn’t meant to speak. What had happened to being in control?

  
“I _told_ you again and again not to risk it, and you went ahead and did it anyway. We only got away with half of our original supplies, and you nearly got yourself killed. So not only did you disobey me, you nearly killed us all.”

  
“I’m sorry.” He wasn’t. Was he? He didn’t know. He didn’t know that he’d thought about it at all until those words had left his mouth.

  
“You’re sorry? Well, it’s too late for that. You should have listened to me.” Again: the truth. A simple fact. If Tom had just followed orders everything would be fucking dandy. He despised the way Chakotay saw the world; all black and white. There was good and there was bad, and that was it. That was who he was.

Tom shifted slightly, moving his legs with his right arm, wincing as he did so.

“I could’ve left you to die, you know. I wouldn’t, and I didn’t, but I could’ve.” Chakotay nodded towards Tom’s injuries, “Our medical supplies aren’t exactly top-notch so that’s probably going to continue to hurt for quite a while, especially from that strong a plasma burn.”

Great. He knew the Maquis was under-equipped but to this extent? He’d figured they’d just been letting him stew in the brig - wallow in his own filth until Chakotay came and told him what far. It was then he would have been escorted to whatever ramshackle medbay they’d set up. Realisation hit him like a truck. This was it. There was no help. “Why were there phasers set so high? It’s against regulation.” That was all he could think to say. Hardly insightful.

  
“Apparently it was a rogue ensign. Saw himself as a saviour for being so vigilantly anti-Maquis. ‘The lowest of the low’ – lower than the Cardassians they’ll have you believe,” he sighed; shook his head, “He’s been reprimanded, and the situation is being dealt with, but it’s only a matter of time before they discover our informant on the _Exeter_. We’re supposed to go back and collect him before they figure out that he was the one who helped us find them. You’re not coming. We’ve decided as a crew that you are to be dropped off at the next M-Class planet we find until someone saves you. You are a risk to yourself and to this crew, and we can’t afford to keep you aboard.”

  
“I’m being marooned?!” He wanted to stand up, he wanted to puns his fists against the force field and scream bloody murder until he ran out of words, he wanted to spit and kick and hiss. His legs wouldn’t let him. He couldn’t stand. He couldn’t move at all. So he sat, paralysed, his mouth hanging agape. He scrabbles for any words he could find. “But I’m injured!” Excellent. Once more, _so _insightful. He was stupid. Why was he so stupid?

Chakotay was in the doorway by now. He stopped, a hand resting in the doorframe. Tom could only see his back but he knew he was thinking; formulating sentences and thoughts and reasons. For a moment Tom thought maybe he was going to listen to him; going to reconsider. Instead, he watched as Chakotay hung his head, turning back to face Tom. He looked at Tom with an expression he couldn’t read. He felt small. He was a child again.

“You know you should really think about the consequences your actions have more often.” And with that, he left.

Tom had been the mouse after all.


	5. An Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief reset.

Tom was going insane. That, he was fairly sure of. He had no idea how long it had been since he’d last spoken to another person. He had no idea how long it had been since Chakotay had come and handed him his death sentence.

He was lying in his cot. That was mostly what he did now. He barely moved from it. He'd given up on accepting the slop of rations that had been brought to him. Occasionally, unfortunately, he would get a sharp pain in his stomach and he would know he had to eat or else something bad would happen. And so, in these instances, he would sit and huddle himself over the build-up of bowls in the corner of the room and shovel them down his throat. He felt disgusting in those moments. He was a rat. He was living solely based on animal instinct. He ate only when he had to. He slept the rest of the time. Washing had stopped altogether. So, he would sit, curled over the rations and trowel them into his dry mouth, head twitching, alert, waiting for someone to walk in with a flashlight in which he would scurry back into the darkness from whence he came.

Anyway, he was lying in his cot - as he usually was - when things changed for Tom Paris. He was first alerted to this change by a faint noise. The noise was familiar but distant. Tom knew he knew it from somewhere. It was a bell or a buzzer or a chime - he couldn't remember. He struggled for the memory, rifling through the filing cabinet in his brain. Flipping through documents at record speed, chasing the right answer. 

Before he could reach it, B'Elanna entered. 

Why was she here? Did he talk to her? Would she talk first? He wasn't sure what it was he'd even say at this point. Luckily for him, though, she spoke first. 

“Chakotay has assigned me to keep an eye on you until drop-off.”

She stood in front of the force field. Her hands rested on her hips, her elbows jutted out at her sides. She didn't look at him. She didn't see the being - once a man, now more of a rat, curled up in sheets and his own filth atop the ledge that he'd been sleeping on. She didn't see the mess of bowls on the floor, licked clean - a sign of his weakness from the night before. She didn't see the bloodstains in the carpet from where Tom had been cleaning his wounds all that time ago - whenever the hell that even was. 

She didn't look at him. 

Tom felt glorious. He wasn't alone. 

“Ah, so we’re both being punished!” He spoke with the confidence and grandeur of a man who hadn't previously passed out in his own sick.

She said nothing.

“So, what did you do, B’Elanna?” He stretched the vowels in her name, feeling them drip from his tongue one by one. He liked the way they felt. He could almost feel them dropping to the floor, bouncing off the carpet. They were the snapping of a pearl necklace and each individual pearl pinging off a marble floor - echoing through his mind. They were marbles, being rolled under his palm. Soft and smooth, yet beyond his control. 

Silence. 

Then: “Torres.”

“What?” He hadn't expected her to speak again. 

“It’s Torres. You can call me B’Elanna when you’ve earned it.”

Tom grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

B’Elanna - _Torres_, Tom corrected himself - rolled her eyes. 

Torres dragged the room’s sole chair from where it had been left in the middle of the floor and shoved it back against the far wall. She sat down, crossing her arms and her legs. She still hadn't looked at him. 

“So, when did you-?”

“Don’t talk to me.” She cut him off abruptly. The words had stuck in Tom's throat, but... he decided he didn't mind. 

Tom grinned again. He rolled over in his cot until he faced the wall. 

_Oh, this was going to be fun._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are things looking up for Tom? Will he stop being so much of an asshole? Let's find out!


	6. Day One

B’Elanna watches him. That’s what she does now. She watches him. She sits in her chair and she watches him.

She doesn’t mind. Really, she doesn’t.

She doesn’t.

Who is she kidding?

Of course, she minds.

But this is what she does now. She sits and watches him.

Paris was right and she hates that. She is being punished. What makes it worse is that it was his fault. She had defended him for some reason. Why had she done that?

She had sat in Chakotay’s ready room and argued with him – that wasn’t unusual, of course; they were close and valued each other’s opinions and most of the time that meant they butted heads. But, no. It had been different. She had sat opposite him at his stupid wooden desk and she had told him he was being stupid. Because he was. That’s how she felt, anyway.

B’Elanna had heard the plans to maroon Paris that morning in their daily round-up (she hated that – why did Chakotay insist on calling their meetings “round-ups”? They were in always in the morning, how was that supposed to make sense?) and she’d been appalled. Sure, Paris was an ass, but he was injured – he was hardly a threat. What good would marooning him do? He was as good as dead if they left him somewhere with no provisions.

And so, when the round-up (_ugh_) had finished, she’d marched into Chakotay’s ready room and told him what for. She’d sat at his desk, her arms gesturing wildly as she spoke. She had told him how she felt that it was wrong to leave a man to die to like that. She didn’t like Paris in the slightest – quite the opposite, in fact. She hated him for what he had done and his stupid reckless decisions that had cost them half the supplies they needed. She hated sitting every night and slopping TKL rations from one side of her dish to the other until she’d stared at it long enough for it to congeal into one solid mass. She could have been eating food (_food_!) if it hadn’t been for him getting them caught during the last raid. She hated that he’d wormed his way onto the Val Jean after fleeing Starfleet. She hated his Little Rich Boy attitude. She hated Tom Paris.

And yet, leaving someone to die? Someone who was injured? Someone who was injured _that badly_? She’d watched after he’d woken up in his cell and how he’d passed out in his own sick. She’d seen him collapse to the floor as his knees were shot out. She knew – no, it was more than that, she was _certain_ – that if they left him to fend for himself on some planet out in the ass-end of the galaxy, that he would die. And that didn’t sit right with her.

And so, she had told this to Chakotay. She had told him that she could not willingly sit by and watch him condemn a man to death. Even if that man did happen to be Tom Paris.

Chakotay had been furious. B’Elanna didn’t think she’d ever seen him that angry. They’d always debated and normally he welcomed her challenging his decisions – he had told her on her first day on the Val Jean that the day he stopped listening to other people’s advice on his decisions was the day he stopped deserving to be in charge. _Huh_. So much for that.

Chakotay’s face had turned an ungodly shade of red and his knuckles were completely white as he had gripped onto the edge of his desk as if he could snap it in half if he really tried hard enough. There was a split second, as he stood up, that the desk bowed slightly and B’Elanna half-expected the whole table to splinter into smithereens. She had wondered if Chakotay’s vice grip was the only thing still keeping the desk up, that if he loosened his hold even slightly the table would release its tension and all but explode in front of them.

It hadn’t, of course, but she had obviously been looking at the wooden slab separating them for too long as Chakotay had snapped her back into the room. He had shouted her name. He told her that her insolence was an offence to his leadership and that if she really cared about Paris’ livelihood that much she could stand watch and make sure he didn’t try to do anything else reckless before he departed them. “Departed” – such a polite word for such a vile act, B’Elanna had thought, lamely, letting her friend’s words wash over her. She had left the room. She knew she had been expected to report to the brig straight away but she didn’t want to.

So, she went down to engineering.

She’d been spending a lot of time there as of late. The thing about Maquis ships was that there was a lack of rank. With numbers varying from vessel to vessel and so few people for so many roles, it had become vital for everyone to muck in where they could. This meant that if one was in the Maquis, one was expected to be able to do anything and do that anywhere. B’Elanna had spent a vast share of her time on the VJ flying, patching people up, making weapons; doing anything that was needed of her. But if there was one place she actually liked to be, it was engineering. She could spend hours listening to the dull hum of the warp core and the dim clatter and chatter of people working around it. She could strip the warp core to pieces and put it back together again blindfolded if need be. She could tell the difference between the types of hypospanners in her sleep. She could tell what speed they were travelling at just by the almost infinitesimal pitch changes of the hum the core emitted.

So, she went down to engineering.

It had been mostly empty. She praised whatever higher power had allowed her that. She walked straight to the ladder that connected the ground and first floor and scaled it in record time. She made her way to the far end of the catwalk, where the platform met the wall and plonked herself down. She leant back against the cool metal of the wall behind her. The cold touch of the steel against her head soothed her. The faint buzzing vibration of the warp core jogged her gently as she closed her eyes against the world.

She was being punished. She was being punished for someone else’s mistakes and it wasn’t fair. It didn’t sit right with her. This was some Starfleet bullshit, wasn’t the Maquis supposed to be better than this? Wasn’t Chakotay supposed to be better than this?

_Chakotay_….

What was going on with him? She’d known his leadership decisions to controversial – sure even damn unreasonable sometimes – but this felt too far. The ship jolted slightly, jerking her away from the wall before knocking her back against it.

_Chakotay_ had been the one that had accepted Paris aboard.

_Chakotay_ had been the one who had allowed Paris to go on the raid.

Oh.

And now, here she is. Sitting in the brig, opposite Tom Paris’ cell. She sits in her chair and she watches him. That’s what she does now. She watches him. She sits in her chair and she watches him.

She doesn’t mind.

Really, she doesn’t.

She doesn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I don't hate Chakotay!


	7. Day Two

B’Elanna is bored.

Paris keeps trying to talk to her. She swats his conversation starters away like flies.

She’s not only bored; she’s tired too. She can’t believe it’s only her second day of The Watch. That’s how she’s come to think of it – The Watch – as its own entity, as some event she is a part of, rather than some menial task Chakotay stuck her with. She thinks that this is probably so she doesn’t go too crazy. She is above this, after all. She’d finally been finding her groove in the Maquis. She’d lived many places and done many things in her three-and-a-bit decades of life, but the only place where she’d actually felt somewhere near to belonging was in engineering. She could sit and fix and mend and deconstruct and reconstruct and for a while, the world inside her head would be at peace. She could sit and read technical journals until the metaphorical cows came home without even noticing that much time had passed. She wished she was in engineering right now. But, at the very least, she knew why she was here. She knew that Chakotay couldn’t stand to look at her and know she was right. She knew that Chakotay couldn’t stand to look at her and know that all of this was his fault. She knew that. But, that didn’t make things any easier. During her time in their friendship she had known Chakotay to be many things – a confidant, a leader, a big brother, a companion – but she had never known him to be so callous. No, not callous – _petulant_ – she thought. He was acting like a child who didn’t want to admit that he was the one in the wrong, shifting the blame to someone else, holding his hands up and innocently shrugging. She hated that she was the one being made to live his guilt. If she thought about – _truly_ thought about it – she didn’t even think that any of this was entirely Chakotay’s fault. She had been the one that had alerted him of the transmission from San Francisco, of the desperate disgraced lieutenant who was seeking asylum. And, had it not been _Tom’s_ decision that fucked up their supply run? She thought of all of these factors and knew that singularly they were all true, and yet when placed together she knew how Chakotay had seen them. They were individual puzzle pieces being clicked into place. B’Elanna had informed Chakotay of the initial transmission. _Click._ Tom had gone on the supply mission. _Click_. Tom had ruined the mission. _Click_. Tom had gotten them caught by Starfleet. _Click. _B’Elanna had defended Tom. _Click. _B’Elanna had sat in Chakotay’s ready room and told him to his face that she thought he was wrong. _Click. _The final piece. She saw the story the pieces formed: _Chakotay had been in charge. Chakotay had let this all happen_. For the fifth and unfortunately not final time that day she wished she was elsewhere.

And yet, here she is on her second day of The Watch, and she is bored and tired. She has spent the morning so far examining technical manuals on a rickety old PADD she pilfered from her last trip to the engine room. She’d been running over the schematics of a more recent edition of Bajoran phasers. A Bajoran crewman had snuck some onboard the VJ after intercepting a freighter bound for some deep space station. B’Elanna had been investigating, scanning through the manual as she slowly began to twirl around the idea of deconstructing one such phaser and modding it with Starfleet phaser parts. She figured it could be disastrous if done wrong – but there was something insider her, some distant voice, assuring her that she wouldn’t go wrong.

She is still mulling this idea over, mapping the blueprints in her mind, her eyes heavy against the flickering light of the old PADD screen, when Paris begins to talk again.

“So, are you going to tell me what you’re being punished for yet?”

Despite herself, B’Elanna welcomes the distraction, she knows Paris is trying to provoke her, trying to get a reaction from her so he can entertain himself, but at this moment, she doesn’t particularly care.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She feels her chest tighten slightly as she speaks and it suddenly occurs to her that this is the first time she has spoken aloud the entire day.

She waits for Paris to probe further, to continue needling away until he gets the reaction he wants.

Instead:

“You know I’m being marooned, right?”

Her chest tightens further. She turns to look at him properly for the first time. His eyes were colourless. She can see that even across the breadth of the room that separates them – her, curled in a chair against one wall; him, slumped in his cot against the other. It wasn’t just his eyes that had lost colour now, she notices, it was as if all the blood had been drained from the man. Paris is sitting on his cot; a ratty blanket is slung to one side of him. His legs extend out in front of him, his arms are dropped at his sides. _He looks like an old ragdoll, _B’Elanna thinks. His clothes are ripped and stained, muddy brown patches that must once have been bright red with blood line the tears. The stains have dulled his already neutral-coloured clothes, washing his complexion out further. He looks almost ghostly.

She remembers how he had looked before the supply run, all that time ago – _how long had it been, exactly? She wasn’t sure herself. A week? A month? Three days? She had no way of knowing. It somehow felt a lifetime ago and yet part of her was sure it could not have been longer than three weeks at the most. _He had been standing on the bridge with his eyes wild; sparkling with anticipation. His hair had been blonder, pushed off his face in a careless manner; his face had been fuller. Pink spots had erupted on his cheeks when Chakotay had told them he was switching them. She thinks of that man as she looks at the one sitting before her now. A sickening bolt erupts in her stomach.

To put it bluntly: he looks like shit.

_Death warmed up_. Her dad used to say that. She’d always thought it was an odd thing to say. She hadn’t thought about it in years, not since her dad had left, anyway. But now the phrase strikes through her like an iron rod.

“Yes.”

She finally answers Paris’ question.

Once more she sits, anticipating more questions, but this answer seems to have satisfied him. He smiles weakly and closes his eyes. B’Elanna watches him; he is still. Heat prickles at the back of her neck and for a split second she thinks that something terrible has just happened. A low snore cuts through these thoughts. _He’s asleep._ She sighs, leaning back into her chair.

She breathes deeply now, trying to calm down; trying not to think. Her stomach still churns and twists itself in sickening knots, as it will for the rest of this day. B’Elanna will not be consciously aware of it, but as the day continues she glances up over her PADD frequently to check Paris is still breathing. He will sleep for the rest of this day, just as the rock will continue to churn in her guts until she eventually falls into restless sleep herself when she is back in her own quarters that night.


	8. Day Three/The Next Week

B’Elanna is late the next day. She has been doing her best impression of a busy person, desperate to miss as much of her next shift of The Watch as possible. It’s early afternoon before she finally makes her way to the brig.

As if on cue, the second she steps through the door the stone from the day before – the one she’d been trying so hard to forget – slams back into her gut; churning her insides like butter. Her stomach feels hot and loose and her throat feels oily – she realises with a sudden bolt of heat in cheeks that she might be sick. She coughs dryly, painfully, and suppresses the urge to run back through the door. She sits down.

“And what time do you call this?”

A voice from beyond the forcefield.

She looks over into the brig and sees Paris sitting upright, he is leaning against one side of his cot, one leg pulled up to his chest, the other splayed out in front. He looks less sickly than the previous day, B’Elanna is relieved to notice. The scabs on his knees look less bright – a duller dirty brown and she is thankful that it seems he can now bend them slightly at the very least. There is something else she notices – his face is no longer dirty; instead patches of red sit on his cheekbones and the tip of his nose, the way one’s face looks when it has recently been scrubbed with cold water. B’Elanna smiles to herself.

A cool wave passes through her and her stomach’s lurching recedes slightly.

Paris is smirking, she notices. _Smirking!_

“I was busy in engineering.” A lie.

He tuts, folding his arms across his chest. “Is my company really that dismal?” Paris cocks an eyebrow as he talks, goading her.

“Has anyone ever told you the world doesn’t revolve around you?” She takes the bait.

“Ah, but there’s so many! At least one must!” He grins.

B’Elanna rolls her eyes. She pulls a PADD from the pile she had left the day before and brings up her modified phaser plans. She holds the tablet in front of her face, determined not to look at him. She had felt so sorry for him before, seeing him so injured and weak, knowing he was practically being sentenced to death. She had felt sick, her guilt twisting knots inside of her. And now, here, she’s faced with someone who exists somewhere in between the shell of the man she had looked into yesterday and the one who had stood on the bridge, determined to fight. If he was a spectrum – the skeletal ghost of a man at one end, the arrogant child at the other – she would place him an eighth of the way in. Better than before, undoubtedly, but still so far left even of the centre.

She is glad to see that he has improved slightly though, and a strange part of her hates herself for it.

*

“Do you ever miss Qo’nos?”

A week has passed since B’Elanna was assigned to The Watch. She sits in her usual chair, her heels tucked up on the edge; her knees pulled up to her chin. She is reading spec reports on her modified phasers. She had managed to build them – pulling apart the different model phasers and reshaping, retooling, repurposing them until they were something completely new; completely _hers_. She had been testing them in controlled settings – she was sure they wouldn’t explode but she knew that this was something she would have to be _certain_ of before she showed them to anyone else. She had thought about showing it to Chakotay – would he smile when he saw it? Would he chuck her under the chin and tell her it was great work? Or, would he tell her she had been reckless in even imagining such a thing? She hadn’t spoken to him since that fateful discussion in his ready room.

Paris’ question hadn’t taken her completely by surprise, sure she had been immersed in her reports, sketching and amending and tinkering with the data set, until the results she wished to see seemed possible. But no, the question had not taken her by surprise. As the week had progressed she’d slowly allowed herself to indulge him more in his questioning. It had been unintentional at first – tripping over his bait and responding to him when she hadn’t meant to (_he would smirk and she would hate herself_) – but now, it was something she secretly didn’t mind. She knew their acquaintanceship was short-lived: she knew that Paris was to be dispatched, and she knew that she would return to normal; but for now, she could afford to humour him – was that not always the last wish of a dying man, after all?

“I didn’t grow up on Qo’nos.” B’Elanna doesn’t look up from her PADD as she answers.

“Oh, sorry.” Paris’ voice sounds smaller and a pang of guilt flinches inside her.

“It’s fine.”

“Where did you grow up, then?”

  
  
“Kessik IV.”

“Do you miss Kessik IV?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I just…” She can’t answer the question, “Do you miss Earth?”

  
  
“Hey, we’re talking about you here.”

“And I said ‘no’. It’s your turn.”

“Fine. Yes, sometimes I miss Earth. But I can’t go back anyway.” His voice sounds strange.

There is a pause, almost deafening in its presence before Paris finally continues: “Now you, why don’t you miss Kessik IV?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”   
  
B’Elanna looks up, making eye contact with Paris for the first time that day. He is grinning, a twinkle in his eye, he gestures to the front of his cell; the invisible wall that separates them. He is reminding her of his shackles.

“Maybe another time.”

He _tsks_ dramatically, “My days are numbered, haven’t you heard?”

She ignores his remark, “What do you miss about Earth?”

He chuckles, and she watches as he lies himself down in his cot, folding his good arm behind his head. B’Elanna places her PADD down on the floor, waiting for Paris to wax poetic.

“I never thought I’d miss it,” he begins, “When I was in the Academy I couldn’t wait until I graduated and was assigned to a ship. I would count down the days until I could get the hell of that planet. It’s not that I didn’t have a good life there, I mean, my parents were… fine; I had friends and I was good in class. But, nothing felt the way I was so certain that propelling through space would feel. When I was a kid I used to ride my bike to and from school. It was my favourite thing. We lived on a hill – of course, we did, the entirety of San Francisco is one big hill – and when I’d ride home I’d catapult down it, my feet free of the pedals, feeling the wind beat against my face and muss my hair. I was convinced it was the best feeling in the world. That’s how I always imagined flying to feel. I think then, in those moments, I really _was_ flying; I just didn’t know it yet.

“Anyway, when I graduated I took the first offer I was given. It was the _Exeter_. All my classmates hated me for it – sure, it was hardly the flagship of the fleet, but boy, was the _Exeter_ envied. I was aware, you know, that these things don’t just happen. My dad is an admiral. I know what these things mean. I know if my dad had been some writer or vendor somewhere that I wouldn’t have got that placement. I knew that. But, I was just so happy to be gone; to be _flying_. I’d only ever wanted to be a pilot, and there was my opportunity, handed to me on a fucking silver platter,” His voice is erratic, wobbling precariously, “And I _fucked it all up_!” He clears his throat, wiping a hand under his eyes – _was he crying?_ B’Elanna dares to wonder just as he starts talking again.

“I never thought I’d miss Earth because I couldn’t wait to get away, to do something; to be the best damn pilot in the fleet. But, now look at me. I’m going to die stranded on some desolate planet and no one I care about will ever know. And I have to think about that _every_ day. I have to think about what _I_ did and how the damn hell I got myself here. _That’s_ when I miss Earth.”

He is silent now, staring up at the ceiling.

B’Elanna wonders if he can see the stars.


	9. Day Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning for gore and also my complete lack of medical knowledge!

B’Elanna is running late again the next day, however, this time it is not on purpose. She had been in engineering, tweaking her phaser design. A crewman had intercepted a shipment of Cardassian phaser rifles and B’Elanna had already been planning the various ways she could incorporate one into her project. What she hadn’t realised, however, was how much time had passed in her doing so; and thus, here she is, late to The Watch once more.

“My, my, Torres, you’re late again.”

Paris is waiting for her, slouching on his cot, propped up by his good arm.

“I have other things going on in my life, you know.” She assumes her usual placement, sitting in her chair against the wall, PADD in hand with latest modifications and trial data to work on, legs flung out in front of her, crossed at the ankles.

“And here I was thinking that _I_ was all that mattered.”

She glances up from her PADD to witness Paris place a hand to his chest in mock horror. Or, rather, she would have done if Paris had not forgotten he was holding his weight with it. He lifts the arm from under him, unbalancing himself and ungracefully slamming down onto the hard surface of the cot, injured shoulder first. He cries out in pain.

It is such a foul sound it causes B’Elanna to jump from her chair. She approaches the forcefield tentatively.

“Is that still bothering you?” She gestures her PADD towards his shoulder, now being clasped by his working hand as he lays on his cot, eyes closed against the pain.

He does not need to have his eyes open to know what she is referring to, “Since they’ve never been treated, yes, they’re still bothering me.”

“They’ve never been treated?” She is incredulous.

“I just said that didn’t I?” He hisses from clenched teeth. He opens his eyes just as B’Elanna recoils from the forcefield. “Sorry. That was… yeah, it still really hurts.”

An idea strikes B’Elanna like lightning on a weather vane, “Hang on, I’ll be right back.” Then, as a force of habit, “Stay there.”

As the door closes behind her she hears Paris call: “Where would I go?”

B’Elanna returns to the brig twenty minutes later, pockets stuffed with whatever relevant medical supplies she could find. Luckily for her the medbay had been vacant although this was often the case aboard such Maquis ships – people were stationed were they were needed; she thanked the powers that be that no one had been needed on med duty. Her trouser pockets are heavy with the weight of hyposprays, gauze and antiseptic.

Paris raises an eyebrow at her appearance. He says nothing.

B’Elanna near waddles over to the control panel, legs swinging, bogged down by the weight of the medical menagerie she carries. She imagines she must look quite like a gunslinger, approaching the forcefield with the tenacity of a cowboy entering a showdown. The image almost makes her laugh before she remembers exactly why it is she is walking like this.

She guesses the code to release the forcefield on her first try (it was Chakotay’s birthday; she tries not to think too long on that one).

Paris shimmies himself over on his cot, making room for B’Elanna to pitch herself down beside him. She empties the contents of her pockets onto the space between the two of them, staring at it blankly. She’s not sure why it only occurs to her now that she has little to no idea of what to do with all this stuff.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Her confusion must have been more obvious than intended.

“No, sorry.” She admits.

“Here,” Paris reaches for a clean cloth and some antiseptic B’Elanna had procured and hands them to her, “I took two semesters of biochemistry at the academy. I’ll guide you.”

Dutifully, B’Elanna wets the cloth with the antiseptic serum, following Paris’ hand to his shoulder, indicating that this is where they start.

“Oh, my apologies, I hadn’t realised I was in the presence of a trained nurse.”

“Yeah, you wish.” He chuckles.

She can see the outline of his jaw, solid and tense. _He’s more scared than he lets on_.

She gently teases the fabric of his shirt away from his injured shoulder. He winces. The wound has scabbed erratically, lumpy and a ghastly mix of red and cream - coloured like the insides of a fig. B’Elanna dabs at the wound, starting first at the edges, Paris baulks, jerking away from her.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

Paris shifts back into position and B’Elanna resumes her cleaning, more carefully this time. She cranes her head closer to his shoulder, patting as gently as she can against the abrasion. She is so close she can smell the faint char still wafting from the coal-black edges of the fabric that she’d prised from his skin. Without thinking she touches the burnt fabric. It crumbles beneath her fingers. She pulls them back and inspects them, black with ash. Paris reaches his good hand over, unbalancing himself slightly, and grips her sooty fingers.

“Don’t.”

His voice is so soft it takes B’Elanna by surprise. She meets his gaze; his eyes had been waiting for hers. Something clicks in the back of her throat.

She drops her hand from his light grasp as if it were made of lead. She turns away, not just her head but her entire body; suddenly aware of just how close they had been sitting. The air between them feels thick and soupy. B’Elanna rubs the back of her free not rag-holding hand at her forehead before returning to his wound. She doesn’t want to think about it but she hates the way she felt the charred fabric break so delicately beneath her fingers – bright white icing spun into delicate patterns, snapping at even the suggestion of a touch – she hates the way it makes her think of someone having damage inflicted on them that could do that to their clothes, let alone what it could do to their flesh. She hates that she can almost smell not just the echo of burnt fabric but now rotting flesh – she may not have taken two semesters of biochemistry but she is fairly certain that untreated wounds from a phaser blast that high leads to necrosis. She doesn’t want to think about that. Something else she doesn’t want to think of now: the phaser of her own design, sitting locked in a carefully stashed cargo case in engineering. She thinks of it and what she knows it could do. She is standing there, holding this beast of a contraption – ugly rust oranges and matte greys and dull sick greens; ridges and curves and smooth lines; the valour the partisan the devil. She fires it and it blasts a hole right through the middle of someone. She thinks how phaser wounds are normally clean and tidy, the heat searing perfect lines. She blasts a hole right through the torso of the person in front of her – but this is not tidy, no. She can see ribs jutting out of the hole at ungodly angles, she can see intestines bubbling over the edge, spitting pus and gunk, blood and flesh spill from the gaping hole that she had created. She drops the phaser, it is red hot, her hands are covered in pussy blisters and blood – blood that is so bright red it makes her feel sick – she can’t know for sure but at this moment, she is certain that the blood is not her own. She stares ahead, incredulous, at the person before her, the person _she_ shot, and they are turning to face her. She can almost see their face, she can almost see their features, she –

“Hey!”

Paris is gripping her shoulder with his working hand.

She blinks.

“Are you okay?”

She bolts to the sink in the corner of the room, shivering as her breakfast reappears in the basin. She spits stringy bile until there’s nothing left.

“Don’t worry, I threw up when I first saw it too.”

She coughs, trying to clear her throat of the burning sensation that rips through it, making her way back over to the cot.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I know it’s pretty gruesome. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“No.” Her words are so sudden they surprise even herself, “No,” Softer this time, “It’s okay, I’m fine.”

She picks up the cloth she had dropped at some point, wetting it with the antiseptic once more and returning to Paris’ shoulder.

Once it is cleaned, Paris guides her with the appropriate way to treat it: dermaline gel over the raw skin, 20ccs of metorapan for the pain and gauze to cover the wound and keep it clean.

B’Elanna continues this pattern on Paris’ knee wounds, now more familiar with the steps. She holds each leg in place gently as she works on them, she can feel them involuntarily spasm beneath her touch. Paris apologises each time even though she thinks he shouldn’t; she knows he can’t help it. She lets him, though. 

B’Elanna secures the last of the gauze around Paris’ right knee wound before sitting back to appreciate her work. Light snoring alerts her to the fact that Paris is asleep. She is unsure when that happened exactly but she is soothed by the sound – she is pleased to know her medical duty helped in some form. She hadn’t realised metorapan was sleep-inducing, but perhaps it was simply the relief of not being in such pain any more that had allowed him to sleep. His face is settled, almost serene the crease above his brow has all but disappeared under the weight of sleep; B’Elanna realises she has never seen him look so relaxed. For a split second, she has the urge to reach out and stroke his hair. She catches herself, hand hovering out in front of her before she comes to her sense. She gathers her supplies, stuffing them back into her pockets and crosses through the entrance were the forcefield usually stood. She chastises herself for even thinking about touching his hair – _where had that thought come from? _– before she erects the barrier between them.

She moves back across the room to the far wall, picking up her usual PADD before settling herself back into her chair. She checks the time – two and a half hours until she can leave. She figures Paris will sleep for the rest of the day now, she thinks about pulling up her latest phaser design schematics – she had been buzzing this morning over the thought of breaking down one of the Cardassian phaser rifles they had come into possession of – at this moment, however, she realises she doesn’t want to. Not right now anyway. So, then, she sits there, her head lent back against the wall behind her, and waits. She watches over her patient. She notices that his wounds have been bound neatly. She is proud of herself for a first attempt. The Val Jean doesn’t have a dermal regenerator, after all.

Paris will have to heal the old-fashioned way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said at the beginning I am totally winging it with my medical knowledge! I know that wounds would probably not be that raw so long after they had been inflicted but also this is all made up! so!


	10. Day Nine

“How are you feeling today?”

Paris seems surprised by her question but his smile is genuine.

“Better, thanks.”

“I brought you more metorapan and I thought you could use a sling to take some of the weight off your shoulder.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I can take them back to the medbay if you don’t need them… And there I was, trying to help.” Snark bites through her tone. It’s light enough that she knows Paris will note the sarcasm in it, however. She wants him to accept her offer of help – she doesn’t do this stuff for just anyone. If she’s honest with herself, she’s not sure of the last time she truly went out of her way to help someone. And, besides, she feels guilty for the time he was here alone, for the week she tried her hardest to ignore him. She feels responsible somehow and she wants to make it up to him.

“I never said I didn’t want it!”

She crosses the room, releasing the forcefield as she goes, and places the collection of hyposprays next to Paris. She reaches into the side pocket of her trousers and pulls out a swathe of fabric – nothing fancy, she hadn’t wanted too many things to go missing from medbay or people would start noticing, instead, it was the lower half of a t-shirt she no longer wore. She unravels the fabric and once more, as he had done when she dressed his wounds, Paris guides her through the process of how to secure a sling. She can feel the tension leave his injured arm as it is secured against his chest.

For the rest of the morning, they sit in amicable silence, B’Elanna back on the correct side of the forcefield; Paris, still on his.

B’Elanna returns from lunch proffering a mug of coffee. On her journey from the mess hall to the brig the drink has dulled in her hands from a comforting warmth – a beating heart cradled delicately between her palms – to a solid mass, dull in its nondescript presence. She gives the cup to Paris, nonetheless.

“I don’t know what food you get here,” she explains, making her best effort to pointedly not look at the pile of rotting dishes in the corner, “I figured you could use a pick me up.”

“Thanks.” He smiles behind the mug, a kind gesture that is almost obscured as he lifts the drink to his lips with his free hand. Paris takes a delicate sip before setting the cup down gently in his lap, “I never thought I’d be so happy to drink the shitty canteen coffee.” He slugs the rest of the drink, placing the mug down beside him as he wipes the dregs from the corners of his mouth, crooking his head at an odd angle so he can reach it with his newly-sling-secured arm. “Thank you, truly. I didn’t realise how much I needed that.”

“Yeah?” B’Elanna grins despite herself.

“Oh, yeah. I feel almost human again.” He declares, returning her grin. He leans his head back against the wall behind him and sighs deeply. “I missed coffee, isn’t that stupid? You get to thinking a lot down here, you know. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about all the stuff I missed. All the places I’ll never get to go to again; all the people I’ll never get to see.”

“Like what?”

“There was this –“ He chuckles, a surprisingly light and tinkly sound that cuts through the stale air, “When I was in the academy I studied in Marseille for a while. There was this bar called _Chez Sandríne_,” (B’Elanna may not have spent that much time on Earth but she can tell the French accent he affects when he states the name is mawkish, to say the least) “I loved it there. I keep thinking about the local Syrah they served there. That, a plate of the freshly-caught fish of the day, and a game of pool – that would be my perfect day.”

She is unsure of how to respond.

“I’ve never been to France.” She says, stupidly.

“You should. Oh, boy, Torres, next time you’re on Earth go to Marseille. It’s so beautiful. Oh, and go to _Sandríne’s! _In fact, ask for Sandríne herself and tell her that good ol’ Tom Paris sent you.”

“Why, will that get me a drink?”

“More likely a slap around the face.” He guffaws. They both laugh – B’Elanna imagines them both in the French bar, him first, years ago, losing games of pool to the locals and drinking too much, young and carefree. Then, getting in a fight, getting thrown through the pool table; getting kicked out. She should be sad at the imagery his comment provokes but it sparks joy in her, it is so quintessentially Paris to miss somewhere he would get barred from. She then sees herself, perhaps a year or so from now, in France for the first time, entering the bar and asking for Sandríne, (_Sandríne_ herself!) and saying that Tom Paris sent her. The frail elderly French woman smacks her around the face and curses her for mentioning such a name in her establishment. She laughs until tears threaten.

“Good to know your reputation follows you everywhere.”

He sobers, “Yeah, something like that.”

B’Elanna clears her throat, intent on changing the subject, “So, you mentioned people you’ll miss as well – is there anyone back home? Have you ever been in love?”

“Wow!” He scoffs, taken aback, a hand clasped to his chest in a comic picture of shock, “You just go straight to the tough questions, huh?”

B’Elanna smirks, and waggles her eyebrows, awaiting his response.

“I don’t know. Sometimes I think I’ve been in love too many times; sometimes I think I’ve never been in love. _Guh_, does that sound cliché?”

“Yes.”

“Go on then, what about you?”

“Nuh-uh! No deflections! I asked you!”

“Okay, fine. But, be warned, you wanted an answer so now you’re getting the Full History of One Thomas Eugene Paris’ Love Life: Unabridged.”

“I’ve got time.”

“Well, when I was six years old I was in love with my teacher, and-”

“_Six? _Jeez, you weren’t kidding about the full history.”

“I never kid! Now, shush, it’s storytime! When I was six years old I was in love with my teacher and I followed her around school like a sick puppy. It was ridiculous. She announced at the end of the school year that she was getting married and I was devastated. I went home and told my mom and cried. She stroked my hair and told me everything would be okay. Secretly, I think she thought it was hilarious: her little six-year-old boy smitten with a woman thirty years his senior.

“Then, uh, as a teenager I was in love with someone different every week, but I think that’s just what being a teenager is. I lost my virginity when I was seventeen, though. My parents were away for the weekend at some conference or whatever, so I invited a _friend_ over. Mark. He was a few months older than me. He was so beautiful. I remember lying there afterwards in a post-sex, drunkenness-starting-to-wear-off haze and tracing patterns on his face with my fingers. I just remember thinking about being six and being in love with my teacher and thinking how stupid I’d been because that hadn’t been love; _this_ was love. Giving all of yourself over to another person so completely, so wholly, _that _was what love was. I think about him and I think about how glorious it all was: eating pizza together and drinking my dad’s vodka and avoiding my room and my ridiculous small single bed and stumbling into my parents’ room and their high-thread-count sheets and each other.”

“You had sex on your parents’ bed?!”

“I was seventeen!” Paris throws a hand up in defence, “You’re interrupting me again, anyway.” He dramatically clears his throat before continuing, “Then when I was in the first year at the academy I was in my first proper relationship. Susie Crabtree. We met during orientation and were glued at the hip from then on. And, oh, I fell _hard_. I thought about her all the time. It was that stereotypical gooey first love kind of relationship. Or, it was until she dumped me, anyway. I had not seen that coming. I didn’t get out of bed for a week; I almost failed Stellar Cartography. Sure, I’ve been with people since Susie, but not long-term. So, those are the three examples that really stand out when you ask if I’ve ever been in love. But, I don’t know. I sit here now and I don’t know if any of those were really love. Or, maybe they all were. I don’t know how you’re meant to know that.”

“What was her name? Your teacher when you were a kid, what was her name?”

“Miss Samuels.”

“I think they were all love. I think love is different every time. You fall in love and you think _‘oh, this is it! This must be what love _really _is!’ _and then you fall in love with someone else and think _‘I was wrong before, now _this_ is love! This is what love is!’_ – But, maybe you’re not wrong. I think that maybe love just feels different with different people.”

“Huh." He sits in silence for a moment, seemingly considering her words.

Then: "So, when did you become a philosopher?”

“Shut up.”

“Okay, well, I just laid myself bare, I think you owe me one now.”

“Fine. I’ve also only ever been in one ‘proper’ relationship. His name was Max - Maxwell Burke. I was eighteen. I ‘borrowed’ his blue sweater and never returned it. He used to call me BLT.”

Paris scrunches up his nose.

“Yeah, I know it’s stupid, but we were eighteen. It’s stupid eighteen-year-old stuff. We had some classes together and we split right before I dropped out of the academy.”

“Wait, ‘the academy’? You went to Starfleet Academy?”

“Was that not obvious from how much of an upstanding citizen I am?” She doffs an imaginary cap, “But, yeah, I was a cadet. I was two years into an engineering degree but I was also four disciplinary hearings and one suspension into being expelled. So, I figured I’d jump before I was pushed, and I dropped out before they had the chance to expel me.”

“Holy shit, Torres!”

“I know.”

“So how do you go from being two-thirds of the way to an engineering degree to being a terrorist?”

The word hits her like a bus, knocking the wind out of her.

“A terrorist?!”

Paris’ face is soft. His eyebrows nearly touching, casting his face in an apologetic light. If she was the sort of person to listen to the reasonable part of her brain she would have realised the Paris had not meant ill will with his poor choice of words and moved on. Instead, being someone who invariably does not listen to the reasonable part of her brain, she explodes in anger.

“Well, how do _you_ go from being a promising young pilot to being a _terrorist_?”

His face sours immediately. He grunts.

“That’s not fair.”

She shrugs.

“I’m sure Chakotay told you, anyway.”

“Yeah, because Chakotay definitely tells me everything!”

“Aw, come on. I thought you and he were best buddies.” Paris’ tone is vicious, mocking. The words bite at her skin.

“If we’re ‘best buddies’ then why did he stick me down here?”

She regrets the words the second they leave her mouth.

Paris’ jaw snaps shut. It is the only sound in the brig now, the only sound between them; the thud reverberating around the room. B’Elanna swears she can feel it as it passes her; goosebumps erupt on her skin.

Maybe she should apologise but, to put it plainly, she doesn’t want to. She’s not sure how the mood managed to change so quickly – hadn’t they been having fun before? The silence is stifling.

B’Elanna is painfully aware of the smell of rotting food that wafts across the room. The only joy she allows herself for the rest of the afternoon is the small indulgence in wonder at how smells pass through forcefields – she hadn’t known that was possible.

Perhaps she should say something to Paris, apologise for the words used, but then, perhaps he should too.

Instead, they sit in silence for the rest of the day, the air thick and hot around them, festering.


	11. Day Ten

“He’s not a bad person, you know?” A pause, “Chakotay, he’s not a bad person.”

These are the first words to leave B’Elanna’s mouth this day. It is late in the afternoon. She has sat in her chair all day, continuing her amendments to her phaser plans. She had spent last night trialling its range, a good channel for her anger. The phaser had now been modified further with the Cardassian parts she had salvaged from their weaponry. It was an ugly-looking beast, that was for sure – all silvers and greens and oranges, different parts from different machines. She couldn’t help but think of the delicious irony of a chance to use it against a Cardassian – to turn the tables on them, have them feel the pain of their own design. More than that even, to have not just their own strength used against them, but the power and resilience of the rust orange sections of the Bajoran weaponry.

The phaser was nearing the end of her tests, she had realised. It had successfully fired at the ranges B’Elanna had predicted and it seemed relatively stable, it could even be adjusted to different settings now. She just had to conduct a few final tests to be sure and then her work would be done. She could show it to Chakotay then. She wondered if he would be proud of her, if he would be glad she had spent her time Watching doing something useful, too. It was childish to wish for such praise perhaps, but she did hope it would be true.

Paris scoffs, bringing B’Elanna back to the present.

“These circumstances… they change you. It’s tough.”

“Tell that to my parents.”

“You must have wondered what was taking so long, why you haven’t been marooned yet; I think it’s because he can’t do it. Not really. Chakotay may make bad decisions sometimes but he’s not heartless. He’s not a murderer.”

“No, of course not. He’ll just condemn an injured man to death for fun.”

“Paris, come on… It’s more complicated than that.”  
  
“Is it? Is it really? I hope you’ll remember that when I’m left for dead on some planet in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

“_Paris!_”

“What? Am I wrong?”

“I know Chakotay, okay? If he wanted you dead he would’ve dropped you weeks ago. He just wants you to suffer a bit, I think.”  
  
“And that’s better?”

“You’re alive, aren’t you?”

“Am I?”

The words settle in the air. B’Elanna can see the pain and anger seething from Paris, emanating from him like white-hot smoke. She knows she should back down, but, as is often the case it seems, she speaks before she thinks.

“You’re being dramatic!”

“Oh!” He chuckles a low, mocking snarl. It is an ugly sound. “_Please_, tell me how great quality of life down here is!”

She ignores his probe.

“You’re a coward.”

“Oh, I’m a coward, now?”

“Yes, you are. You don’t even believe in the cause. You don’t care about what’s right. You’re just here because you have nowhere else to go.

You get kicked out of Starfleet and disgrace your family. You’re no longer Daddy’s Golden Boy so you join the first cause that looks your way. You don’t care about any of this. You just needed to prove a point to your father.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No. I’m pretty sure I do. You’re a coward Paris, and you always will be”

“Oh, fuck you!”

He throws a dish against the forcefield. It shatters in a tremulous cacophony of screeches - the forcefield itself buzzing at the invasion of touch, the plate vibrating at such a high frequency it simply shatters against the current. It rains to the ground in jagged specks.

B’Elanna and Paris are frozen in shocked silence.

B’Elanna looks across at Paris, his free arm still hovering at his side from where it had flung the plate. The anger and pain are gone from his face; his face, no longer red but sheet-white. His eyes are wet. He looks terrified.

“I’m sorry.” His words are barely a whisper, “Shit, I’m so sorry.”

He drops to the floor. B’Elanna follows suit, sitting on the just in front of the forcefield.

“I didn’t mean to do that. I’m not that person. I’m really not. I’m sorry, it’s this place, I suppose. I wanted to be better than this, but it’s true. I’m a coward.”

“You’re not a coward, I shouldn’t have said that.” She wrings her hands as she speaks.

Paris looks up at her. They make eye contact for the first time that day, “No, you were right. I am a coward.” A tear slips down his cheek. “I didn’t want to join the Maquis – I thought it was stupid and reckless, but so was I.” He sighs deeply, apparently contemplating something for a moment. He scoots himself over against the nearest wall; it helps to have something to lean against, “Can I ask, why did you join?”

“I was scouted.”

“I’d assumed as much. I mean, why did you decide to do it?”

“It’s a long story.”  
  
“Hey, we’ve been here before – it’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

“I believed in the cause.”

Paris shrugs with one shoulder. His movement says that this is something else he had assumed.

“That’s it.”

“I thought you said it was a long story?”

B’Elanna knows that there’s more to the story, if she’s being honest with herself, he relationship with the Maquis, for sticking up for those who others have stopped listening to, is much deeper than simply believing in their cause. No, to her, although she may not have put two and two together for herself quite yet, being part of the Maquis is deeply personal.

“Well, I suppose I just felt for the injustice of the Bajoran people. They were persecuted and tortured and killed, they were occupied and nearly lost their culture – not to mention the diaspora that has spread across various desolate planets – and then the Federation turns around and signs a peace treaty with the Cardassians and everyone is just supposed to be okay with that? They’re still out there! The Cardassians, they’re still out there! They don’t intend to stick to the peace treaty for a second! If they had it their way they would still be occupying Bajor and running their sickening _camps_,” She spits the word, it is hot and uncomfortable in her mouth “We see them, you know? We see the real them! They are out there killing and pillaging and the second they get the opportunity they’ll be back at it! They haven’t suddenly changed their opinions just because the occupation is over. But the Federation doesn’t care about that! They just care about keeping up appearances – and to them, it is better that there is signed ‘peace’ and silence rather than justice for Bajor.”

“I’d never thought of it like that.” Paris looks genuinely stunned, B’Elanna looks across at him and can detect the guilt that lies beneath the surface. She is glad – she is glad that he is rethinking what he knew. She hates herself a little for getting so heated, for expressing her opinion so loudly, so vigorously, but then she hates herself for hating herself for that. She realises it is an odd line to walk – caring about something so passionately, but having that voice in the back of your head telling you that you are being preachy and rude for even speaking up – hark! There she is, the hysterical woman! The Klingon stereotype, so full of anger!

She doesn’t know where these thoughts originate from.

_(She knows where these thoughts come from – if she lets herself)_

But she is better than them! She does not wish to listen to them anymore!

_(They’re still there; she fights them but they’re still there)_

If, say, B’Elanna sat down and let herself think back through her life and how she ended up here, she could perhaps – again, if she allowed herself to – realise that this was always an inevitably for her, and could be traced back to her childhood.

Instead, B’Elanna sits on the floor of the brig, the carpet scratching at her ankles that are crossed in front of her. She doesn’t want to think about that.

“I’m a prick, aren’t I?” It’s Paris.

A smile curls up B’Elanna’s lips, “Yes, but what is this about specifically?”

Her reply is deadpan if Paris couldn’t see her face he would probably feel quite hurt, but the smirk on B’Elanna’s face betrays her comment in good humour.

“As I said, I’d never even thought about the situation like that. That’s ridiculous isn’t it?”

“I think when you’re raised inside the Propaganda Machine it’s hard to think any other way.”

Paris expels a shocked noise, a sudden burst of expression, it sounds like a bag full of air being decompressed. Slowly but surely, the noise builds into something greater: a laugh. A loud, giddy, raucous thunder of laughter.

It is not the response B’Elanna had been expecting.

“What?”

“I’m just-” the words are almost muffled by his laughter and the hand in front of his face, attempting to stem the flow of tears streaming from his eyes, “I’m just imaging my dad hearing you call Starfleet and the Federation the ‘Propaganda Machine’ and God, it’s amazing.”

B’Elanna snickers, “Oh, yeah?”

“Oh, God, he’d be so angry!” Paris throws his head back, allowing the laughter to flow through his body, his shoulders bounce up and down against the wall behind him. It doesn’t hurt. He isn’t in pain. “God, the look on his face would just be delicious! Oh, I wish he could hear that.” 

B’Elanna hears the way he discusses his father, the history of unsaid things behind his use of the word ‘_dad’_. She recognises it. She sees herself in it.

B’Elanna stands up, suddenly aware that her shift ended half an hour ago.

“I shouldn’t have said what I said yesterday. About being ‘stuck here’ with you. Chakotay did assign me here because I disagreed with him. But. It’s not how I thought it would be. _You’re_ not who I thought you would be. I suppose, despite myself, I quite like spending time with you.”

Paris cocks an eyebrow, he opens his mouth about to say something when he closes it again suddenly, seemingly thinking better about whatever it was. Instead, he bows his head slightly, his eyes are warm and kind when he looks up again, making eye contact with B’Elanna through the forcefield. “Thank you. Hey, you’re not so bad yourself.”

B’Elanna rolls her eyes, “Good one, flyboy.”

She turns away and begins to leave the brig feeling much better than she had just a day previous. The door opens before her and an odd sensation prickles at the back of her neck, the familiar sensation of being watched – she knows that if it is anyone it must be Paris. She feels an odd warmth in her ribcage over the thought. As the doors close behind her she takes one last look into the brig. Paris was indeed watching her leave, a grin plastered across his face. She wonders what the next day will bring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait!   
I hope everyone had a great festive season!


	12. Day Eleven

“So, Kessik IV.”

“What about it?”

“You still haven’t told me why you hate it.”

It was late morning and B’Elanna and Paris had been enjoying jovial conversation for the past few hours. B’Elanna had noted that Paris looked much healthier than he had previously, and asked if his injuries were still sore; Paris had explained that thanks to B’Elanna, his injuries were doing a lot better.

“I don’t hate it.”

“Why you don’t miss it, then.”

“I don’t really want to get into it.”

“Okay,” Paris sits for a moment, seemingly thinking hard about what to say next, “Okay, what about just the planet itself then?”  
  


“What do you mean?”

“Well, you don’t want to tell me why you don’t miss it, what happened or didn’t happen – and I respect that – but what’s the planet like? I’ve never been there.”

She thinks for a moment – flashes of laughter and sun and grass and love and hate and darkness and rain and mud cycle through her mind.

“It can be vicious in the winter, temperatures so low and so much snow you forget that it could ever look any other way. Truly, snow as far as the eye can see for months on end. You begin the winter with joy at the sight of snow, so crisp and untouched and perfect, a warm blanket hugging the land, then about halfway through winter you’re so sick of it that you think you could quite happily live the rest of your life without ever seeing snow again. By the end of winter, it has become so normal, such a part of your everyday life that you don’t even notice it anymore. And then… just when you think nothing will change, spring happens. There is sunlight again, and warmth, and flowers and grass! You’d nearly forgotten what grass looked like! The best part of spring, though, is the festival of Bevkarjii. Kessik IV has three moons, and there’s one night every Lunar cycle where for half an hour they’re all perfectly lined up. It was meant to bring luck. It had been said that for that half hour when the moons are aligned, the people of Kessik IV reach a higher state of being; that magic is possible. I never believed in that, but I’ve never felt more connected to the ground, to the air, to everything and everyone around me as I did during Bevkarjii. You know, the festival itself used to take place on the beaches. Beaches all over the world would be packed full of people, giving praise to their planet and feeling a connection to it unlike any other. It was a big deal. You’d see people who hated each other dancing together and people who had never spoken before sharing food. That half an hour every year was the only time I liked living on the planet.”

“It sounds beautiful.”

She hasn’t let herself think of it like that for years but, he is right; it was beautiful. It really was. She smiles to herself and wonders whether she’ll ever be able to return to Kessik IV now she’s in the Maquis – technically a fugitive on Federation soil – she realises she probably won’t be able to. She is surprised that that realisation makes her sad.

Paris speaks, interrupting her thoughts:

“What you said yesterday about joining the Maquis, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. It was wrong of me to think I could scrape by here and that my cockiness and anger would help anyone, that’s not what this place needs. It needs people like you, who believe in the cause and who are trying to do things right. It’s been a long time since I’ve tried to do anything for the right reasons, but I hope to now.”

“That’s….” She’s lost for words.

“Oh, God, sorry. Was that weird?” Sudden panic washes across Paris’ features.

“No!” B’Elanna is quick to reassure him, “No! No, it wasn’t weird, it’s just-“

Paris is looking at her - an odd half-expectant look on his face, his posture is faux-casual - the way one looks when they are trying so hard to not look like they care as deeply as they may.

B’Elanna can’t control herself any longer and breaks out into hysterical laughter.

“What’s funny?” Paris looks bewildered.

B’Elanna tries to compose herself, wiping tears from her eyes, before a snort breaks free and she sends herself back into hysterics.

“I don’t understand what’s funny? I’m pouring my heart out here!”

She opens her mouth to talk but instead laughs harder; they are unrelenting and glorious. Truthfully, she isn’t entirely sure why Paris very nice and flattering comment turned her into a cackling mess, but she knows that it feels good to laugh like this.

Eventually she manages to tame her laughter and – through hiccups – is able to talk again.

“Sorry, (_hic) _you were just being so nice to me! _(hic) _It was lovely, it _(hic)_ it really was! I suppose _(hic)_ it’s just _(hic)_\- God, these hiccups!” She clears her throat loudly, chasing the hiccups away, “It was nice, it was lovely! It was _so _lovely. I think it’s just strange to hear someone compliment me like that. I’m sorry for laughing.”

Paris chuckles, surprising B’Elanna, “Don’t be sorry, it was nice. Weird and unexpected, yes, but, nice.”

Then he smiles at her and it’s like the sun has come up. A warm ache in her chest makes looking at him too difficult; she has to turn away. She tries not to think about what any of that means as she picks up her PADD and blankly stares at the words and numbers on the screen.

A small buzz emanates from the PADD, informing B’Elanna it is now lunchtime. She is welcome for the escape, and so places the tablet back on the table she’d just grabbed it from, explains to Paris she’ll see him after lunch, and exists the brig.

* * *

B’Elanna knows that something is wrong before she has even reached the brig. There’s an odd fluttering feeling in her stomach and throat and her brain won’t listen to her calm reasoning that _it’s just lunch, I must have eaten too fast; everything is fine_. She is disappointed to learn that she is correct, something is wrong: Chakotay is waiting for her.

“What’s going on?” The odd fluttering is now full-blown panic and her eyes instinctively search for Paris’ across the room. She can feel Chakotay’s own eyes boring into her and she knows that he will have seen this; seen her look to him so frantically and desperately. Paris is sitting on his cot, his free hand holding his sling protectively, his eyes fixed on the ground.

Chakotay is standing in front of the force field, hands on his hips and thunder on his face. He is holding a dark grey object in one hand.

“What is this?!” Chakotay waves her PADD in front of her face. Shit. She hadn’t even thought about leaving it here.

She can’t speak.

“B’Elanna, do you have any idea how dangerous this is? Modifying phasers like this? You could get someone killed!”

Her throat is sandpaper.

“I can’t believe this. I thought you were better than this. I can’t believe you’d be so foolish. I don’t even want to know how much time you’ve been wasting on this. Your insolence knows no bounds, B’Elanna! Maybe I was wrong to think you could do this. Maybe I was wrong to think you were Maquis material in the first place.”

His words hit her like bricks.

Chakotay tucks her PADD into a pocket on his trousers, meeting her gaze one final time – ice shooting through her – before simply walking out of the brig.

B’Elanna slumps into her chair, her body suddenly impossibly heavy. She knows she should process what Chakotay has said to her but all her brain can think is _it wasn’t supposed to be likes this_. Things had meant to go better, hadn’t they? Things had meant to be _different._ The wind has been knocked out of her. She feels like a husk; as if someone has pushed her whole being backwards, out through her body. She is disconnected. The lights are on, but no one’s home.

“I guess you’re really in trouble now, then.”

She’d forgotten Paris was there.

Her head is spinning. She can only muster a small humming noise of agreement.

“That’s two of us.”

The hum again.

“I still think I have it worse, though. Especially, now.”

She can’t even hum.

“Didn’t you hear?”

She lifts her head, and sees Paris across the room, that familiar faint blur of his features from behind the force field. He looks odd, even from this distance she can see that. He looks hollow.

“Hear what?” Her words aren’t much more than a croak, escaping through her sandpaper throat in one burst.

“I die tomorrow.”


	13. One Final Interlude

No.

_No_.

Absolutely not.

B’Elanna storms into Chakotay’s ready room, not waiting for permission to enter. He does not look surprised to see her, in fact, he looks like he’s been expecting this.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

“B’Elanna.” His voice is calm. That angers B’Elanna further – how dare he be so calm?

She stands in the doorway, her fists clenched at her sides in anger; her knuckles are white.

Chakotay is sitting behind his desk, scribbling away on a PADD; he had leaned back in his chair when she entered his room, an eyebrow cocked at her appearance.

“Sit down, please.” He gestures to the seat the other side of his desk, and B’Elanna, despite herself, follows orders. “What seems to be the problem?”

She scoffs loudly, crossing her arms in front of her, _what seems to be the problem?_ – where was she to begin?

She wants to make a clear and concise argument but instead the words tumble out of her quite ungracefully, “I can’t believe you! I was making that phaser to help you! You have no right to be angry at me for it! It’s unfinished! I’ve been testing it and it will work fine with a few more tweaks! It was a damn good idea and if you can’t see that that’s your problem! Not to mention how you’ve been treating Paris – I mean, you can’t maroon him. That’s inhumane! That’s everything we’re against! I thought you were better than this.”

“That’s what you’re here about?” Chakotay lifts the mug of coffee that had been sitting next to his PADD from his desk and takes a long sip.

“_Yes_!”

“B’Elanna, the thing is, your actions have consequences. Everyone’s actions have consequences. Sometimes people need to be reminded of that.”

“Oh, please! Don’t be so high and mighty, you’re still just angry that you trusted him in the first place and you hated me for knowing that too. You banished me to the brig to punish me but I wouldn’t let that happen, so then you saw my phaser plans and you had an excuse; an excuse to punish Tom and me for _your_ mistakes. You know I’d been defending you to him?”

Chakotay doesn’t say anything for a moment, taking another long sip from his coffee, finally:

“’Tom’? Since when was he ‘_Tom’_?”

“What?” B’Elanna hadn’t even noticed.

“You want to hear something ironic?” Chakotay sets his mug down on the desk with authority, clasping his hands out in front of him, leaning across the oak table to look B’Elanna dead in the eyes.

“I didn’t think you were one for irony.”

“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you thought. I was coming to the brig to let Paris go. I don’t want to be that person, B’Elanna. I don’t want to be the person that has to make these decisions, I really don’t. But, you undermined me and my authority. I can’t accept that. I made you watch Paris because I was mad at you, and that was wrong of me, I admit that. But, you broke my trust; you created a dangerous weapon without my permission. You could’ve hurt someone; you could have hurt yourself.”

She looks at him then, really looks at him, for the first time in a long time. He looks exhausted, older than his years. She feels sorry for him.

“As I said, you broke my trust. You’re banned from engineering and the brig. You’re to be confined to your quarters for the next two weeks.”

“What?! Chakotay, come on. You can’t be serious.”

“Like I said: maybe you don’t know me as well as you thought.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter is on its way and hooooooo it's a long one!


	14. The Last Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao this chapter is so much longer than I intended, so strap in for a quadruple-length(!!!) read! 
> 
> content warning for alcohol and mild violence!  
(there are other things I would definitely give warnings for but I also don't want to spoil plot points so read at your own risk!)

It is just before midnight when B’Elanna returns to the brig clutching a bottle of alcohol. The _Val Jean_’s limited crew means that the guard on her door had clocked out at just after eleven pm, assuming her to be long asleep. She had crept down the corridors, making her way to the brig, hoping in all hope that the same could be said for whoever was guarding the brig. Luckily for her and her bottle of alcohol, she’d been correct. The alcohol – contraband of course – had been tucked away in the bottom drawer of B’Elanna’s dresser for the past six months. Initially, she had been intending to keep it for an appropriate occasion, a celebration perhaps, but tonight seemed as good a time as any. The alcohol of choice – Denobulan whiskey – had come into B’Elanna’s possession the way most things on a Maquis ship did, through a raid. She’d been one of the lucky ones, finding valuable loot like alcohol on the freighter they’d intercepted. She’d meant to turn it over to the rest of the crew for redistribution, truthfully, she had, but it had been such a long time since she’d had something solely to herself, and that small selfish part of her brain had won her over as she’d smuggled the whiskey back to her room.

Paris is still awake when B’Elanna enters the brig, she holds a finger up to her mouth, shushing him, before lowering the forcefield and entering his cell.

“Torres,” He grins at her and B’Elanna thinks it such a lovely sight, and then, Paris does something rather unexpected but equally as splendid, he wraps her into a hug. His body feels warm against hers, her forehead at the perfect height to rest against his unharmed shoulder; his chin dropped to rest against her shoulder. It’s been a long time since she had experienced such an act from another – so intimate and yet chaste, so comforting and familiar despite their difference – she wondered how long it’d been since someone had returned such a gesture to Paris.

“Thank you,” His words were spoken almost directly into her shoulder, where he had decided to rest his face. They should have been muffled by this but B’Elanna heard them as clearly as if they’d been beamed directly into her brain.

“It might not be Syrah in Sandríne’s, but this is the best we’ve got.” She pulls herself back from his embrace and hands him the bottle of Denobulan whiskey. The liquid is amber and syrupy, she watches as bubbles dance toward the neck of the bottle; towards Paris’ mouth.

“God, I missed alcohol!” He sighs, satisfied, as he passes the bottle back to her.

B’Elanna takes a sip, trying not to think about how his lips had been in the same place just moments earlier.

“You know, once upon a time it was a tradition for Naval officers to toast to life like this before they went off to die.”

“I thought that was just before going into battle.”

“Battle for survival counts, surely,” (_B’Elanna is trying not to think_) “Besides, I always have the leftover metorapan you gave me if things are looking bleak.”

“God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think he’d do it, I really didn’t! It’s my fault if I hadn’t left my PADD here Chakotay wouldn’t have found out about my phaser.”

“It’s okay. It’s all alright.” His voice his strangely calm.

His hand lands atop hers. B’Elanna feels that she should pull away but there is something stopping her from doing so. His hand is warm against hers. It feels right and correct for it to be there; as if it was made solely to rest against her own. She looks across at Paris. He seems not to have even noticed what he has done.

She is struck by a thought that is rather strange, precisely that Paris’ hand, rested so casually against hers, does _not_ feel strange. In fact, B’Elanna is rather overcome by how inexplicably normal and right it feels. This, in itself, is rather strange.

“I was angry before when Chakotay told me I was being ‘dispatched’. But, I’ve spent so much of my life being angry; I don’t want to be anymore. I don’t want to go out angry. I’ve had time to think about it all now and it’s okay…. It’s really all okay.”

“I don’t believe you.”

B’Elanna expects Paris to turn to her, to argue back, for their conversation to devolve into a disagreement as they are wont to do, but instead, he does something else that takes her by surprise – the third but not final time he would do as such this evening: he smiles at her.

His smile is so soft and so kind, illuminating his face – he looks almost the handsome man he had been before he’d ended up here, but perhaps, more humbled – he looks rather beautiful. B’Elanna would never say this out loud, of course, but she feels it so sincerely that it stops any further comments she would have made. No, instead, B’Elanna does something that surprises even herself – the first but not last time this very same evening – she leans over and kisses him.

The kiss is tender, it is not overly hungry or passionate but there is a sweetness behind it, a desperation that betrays the longing they are both filled with; that betrays just how long it has been since either experienced any such show of kindness or intimacy with another person. B’Elanna presses her forehead against his. She cups a hand to his cheek. She can feel his tears wet her fingers.

“Tom.” She smiles into him, hoping her sadness isn’t obvious. She strokes his cheek with her thumb, wiping the tears that softly fall with care. She hears a small choking noise come from Tom when she says his name.

“Does this mean I can call you B’Elanna, now?” He chuckles.

B’Elanna pulls her face away from his, still holding his cheeks with her hands. She studies his face, his eyes are wet and shining, his cheeks pink and warm beneath her touch, his smile is slightly crooked. She focuses on each feature individually, tracing the lines and dips and curves with her eyes until they are burned into her memory. She wants to remember this. She wants to remember him.

Instead of responding to him she presses a kiss to his cheek, where one of her hands had been just moments ago. His cheek tastes like salt from his tears. She curls back into him, wrapping him into an embrace, her hands tangled in the back of his shirt against his warm back. She can feel Tom’s tears continue to fall against her shoulder where his head is buried. The two sit like this for what feels an age, enjoying the closeness; holding each other.

“I never told you what I did to get kicked out of Starfleet; off the _Exeter_.” The words come as a surprise to B’Elanna, who pulls herself away from the speaker. B’Elanna is unsure why Tom thinks that now is an appropriate time to raise such an issue - something she hadn’t even thought of the entire time she’d known him - she can see by the look on his face that he is quite surprised himself to have brought it up.

“It’s okay. You don’t need to tell me. Whoever you were when you did whatever you did; you’re not that person now.”

He smiles to himself, but there’s something behind his eyes that B’Elanna can’t quite read - sadness, perhaps. She is unsure.

He snaps back to his happy-go-lucky persona before B’Elanna can work out what it was. Tom reaches for the bottle of whiskey – still two thirds full – and swirls it around, watching as the golden liquid laps the sides of the bottle. He takes a long swig from it before passing it to B’Elanna. She does the same.

“So,” Tom takes another swig from the bottle, “What is this Frankenstein phaser of yours? You haven’t really told me anything about it.”

“Oh, it’s nothing really. Huh, it probably literally _is _nothing now if Chakotay’s gotten his hands on it.” She gently takes the bottle from Tom’s outstretched hand and swallows down more of the alcohol. Her head is starting to fog pleasantly and she can feel a growing heat in her cheeks, “It was just some idea I thought would be interesting – DIYing a phaser of my own from a bunch of salvaged parts and faulty weapons. I was nearly there with it, but,” she shrugs, “things happen.”

Tom chuckles lightly, “Things sure do happen!” B’Elanna notices that his cheeks are a sweet rosy pink as she passes him back the bottle of whiskey, “To things happening!” Tom raises the bottle triumphantly, an ironic salute to their situation.

If B’Elanna were less tipsy she would roll her eyes, but instead, she lets out a small cackle. She really does enjoy his company. She can’t even begin to think what the next day is going to be like. No, she doesn’t want to think about that. Instead, she chooses to enjoy this time – and getting nicely drunk doesn’t seem like the worst form of denial either.

“Okay,” B’Elanna clears her throat as if to make an important announcement and Tom looks at her, his eyes catching hers, “If we’re going to sit here sharing a bottle like we’re students, I think we should go all-in on it and play a drinking game. Let’s see, Truth or Dare? 20 Questions? Never Have I Ever?”

This makes Tom laugh – his delightful warm laugh – and he takes another sip of the drink. “Well, we’ve already discussed first relationships, sex, and upbringing, I’m not sure we have any more bases to cover. How about,” He absentmindedly picks at the label on the bottle as he thinks, “quickfire questions?”

“And what does that entail?”  
  
“Well, we would ask each other a series of questions and the other person has to answer with the first thing that comes into their head. If the person answering stumbles or hems and haws then they have to drink.”

“Okay…” B’Elanna reaches over and takes the bottle from Tom, making a show of taking a long, thoughtful gulp of the whiskey. She stands the bottle back on the floor and wipes her mouth dramatically, outstretching the same hand to shake Tom’s free one enthusiastically, “Deal!”

A wild grin spreads across her face as she looks over at Tom. His eyes are wild; the alcohol-induced rosy pink of his cheeks make his face look softer, accentuated by the scruffy stubble that had worked its way over Tom’s jaw in the time she had known him.

He repositions himself on the floor, leaning back on his free arm and jutting his legs out in front of him, to B’Elanna’s side. B’Elanna couldn’t help but notice the scabbing and blistering red skin over both knees that are exposed by the burnt-away holes in his trousers.

“Right, you ready?” She raises her eyes to his and is greeted by a devilish smirk.

“Okay.”

“Green or blue?”

  
  
“Green.”

“Do you like apples?”

“Yes.”

“What year were you born?”

“2349.”

“Swimming or cycling?”

“Swimming.”

“Land or sea?”

“Land.”

“Would you like to kiss me again?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“You are really terrible at asking questions.”

B’Elanna positions herself closer to Tom, leaning across him, placing a hand on the floor to balance herself. She moves her face until it is inches from his. She can feel the heat from Tom’s cheeks against her own. She moves even closer until their lips are practically touching, and then, at the last minute, she pulls away, having successfully grabbed the whiskey from his side.

“Okay, that was mean.” Tom pretends to pout.

“Maybe you should have asked better questions.” She grins at him and takes a long sip of the warm whiskey. She winks at him as she offers him back the bottle.

He laughs again as he takes it back from her before taking a swig himself. He places the bottle – now less than a third full somehow – back down on the floor, in the space between his straight legs and her knees, tucked to her side.

“Ugh, I’ve definitely drank too much. I swear I just felt the room move.” Tom rubs his free hand groggily across his face. It is in this moment, where Tom is so delightfully unaware, that a jolt runs through the ship. A violent, sickening shudder unbalances him, tossing him onto the rough carpet. He lands ungracefully and with full force on his injured shoulder. He cries out in pain.

B’Elanna, who had had both hands resting behind her at the moment the ship rocked, had managed to stay upright. She reaches over, helping Tom pull himself back up to a sitting position.

“Are you okay?” She grimaces as she looks at his shoulder, the scabbing burst and fresh blood beginning to trickle down his upper arm.

Tom winces as he places a hand to his shoulder and his fingers come away wet, “Yeah, just… what was that?”

B’Elanna stands up, helping Tom up and onto his cot. She grabs a hypospray of metorapan from the ledge next to the sink and releases it into Tom’s neck. She can see his muscles contract and him start to physically relax. The tension releases in his shoulders and Tom slouches back against the wall that now supports him.

“Thank you.” He smiles at her dozily through the haze of alcohol and analgesic and it suddenly occurs to B’Elanna that maybe that is not a combination that should be mixed. Metorapan was non-drowsy, right? “Do you think we hit something?” He slurs lightly.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” She reaches out and strokes his face instinctively, before grabbing the bottle from the floor and emptying it into the sink; refilling it with cold water. “Here,” She hands Tom the water, “You’ll probably want this now.”

B’Elanna smiles as Tom takes a measured sip of the water. Despite what she had told him, she had no idea what had happened that would cause the _Val Jean_ to shake like that. It was entirely possible – as she had assured Tom – that it was nothing and that they had simply accidentally collided with a small asteroid, but, a small voice in the back of her head told her it was likely otherwise.

Suddenly, as if to damn B’Elanna and confirm her worst suspicions, the ship shudders and rocks aggressively again. B’Elanna supports herself against a wall and watches as Tom sways on his cot; she is glad she thought to move him there.

“Was that nothing?” Tom looks at her, concern in his eyes and his voice suddenly frantic – B’Elanna whispers a silent _thank God_ that the metorapan had seemingly been non-drowsy after all.

The distant noise of alarms and screaming abruptly pierces through the ship-wide speakers, making B’Elanna’s blood run cold.

“Oh my God,” her heartbeat thuds loudly in her ears, “I’ll be right back!”

She races out of the brig and down the corridor, bouncing off a wall as the ship shudders again. They’re under attack. Oh, dear God, they’re under attack.

She isn’t quite sure where she’s headed until she gets there, but before she knows it she’s pulling open her locker in engineering in a frenzy. Her phaser is still there! Untouched! She grabs it and plunges it into a pocket on her trousers, before careening back down the corridor.

She slams into the nearest communal area which happens to be the mess hall, practically empty besides two crewmen, fixed before the large expanse of windows, mouths agape. There are tables, cups and odd grey slop that she identifies as trodden-in TKL rations strewn across the room’s floor. Her boots stick and unstick to the carpet as she manoeuvres her way over to the crewmen.

The crewmen at the window – a young human woman with pale skin and short red hair and a young Betazoid man with a thick shock of bleached white hair – have not noticed her arrival. B’Elanna’s stomach churns sickeningly as she approaches the forcefield, finally able to see exactly what it is they are so consumed by. A Rigelian freighter – it’s sickening sludge green colour and clunky obtuse design – stares down the _Val Jean_. B’Elanna can see from the red glow that is located beneath their view screen – either side, glowing in the blackness of space like demonic eyes – that they are about to fire off another shot. As if on cue a bright white light flashes across her vision as the ship shakes and shudders, throwing her against the support beam she had positioned herself next to.

“What the hell is going on?” She shouts this, over the near excruciating volume of the alarms that blare through the room, to the Betazoid crewman who is also somehow still standing before the window.

“The Rigelians!” He still stares straight ahead – B’Elanna isn’t sure if he’s even noticed her, yet, he still answers. He raises a hand and points in the direction of the angry-looking freighter, “The Rigelian freighter! Chakotay said they wouldn’t come for us! They wouldn’t noticed we’d looted their supplies!”

_Oh_. Dear, God.

“It’s okay,” B’Elanna places a reassuring hand on the shoulder of the Betazoid man, turning to find the human woman trembling against an upturned table, she offers her a small smile. “Everything will be okay. Stay out of sight, and if they board, don’t do anything rash unless you absolutely need to!”

She races back out of the mess hall, her heart in her throat. They’d already been boarded, they must have been; there would not have been this level of chaos and destruction just from a few warning shots across the starboard bow.

If that crewman was right – and she knows he must be, she saw the Rigelian freighter herself – Chakotay has gotten them all into the thickest of shit. What the hell was he thinking, crossing the Rigelians? She had to find him; she had to confront him.

She stumbles her way to the bridge, clambering as carefully and as quickly as she can over the debris that now fills the walkway, hands running alongside her on either wall, keeping her upright. A Jelna woman appears in the turbolift as B’Elanna passes it. B’Elanna notices her first, grabbing her phaser from her pocket and blasting out the door mechanism, slamming them locked in the woman’s face. 

Her phaser hadn’t failed her but it emitted a concerning hum and felt oddly warm in her hand. _So,_ she thinks, _we have been boarded. I’ve got to warn Tom._

She U-turns in the corridor, holding her phaser out ahead of her and speeds back towards the brig.

Tom stands up abruptly as she enters, “B’Elanna! What is it, what’s going on?”

She stands at the entrance to Tom’s cell, he is still where she had left him on his cot, blood dripping down his arm. Shit, hadn’t she thought to stem that? Her head throbs from the combination of alcohol, the violent sirens and the adrenaline shock.

“Rigelians. They’ve boarded.”

Tom’s eyes go black. “Shit.”

B’Elanna grimaces. She watches as Tom’s head appears to practically spin around the room as he stumbles over the starts of questions: _who’s_, _what’s_, _where’s_, and _why’s_. She imagines raising the forcefield and leaving him there, knowing that no matter what happens to the rest of them, at least he’d be safe. But, she can’t. She needs him by her side.

She moves to the Federation-standard weapons locker on the furthest wall, unlocking it and removing a Starfleet-issue hand phaser. “I need your help. We need to draw the Rigelians away from the bridge. We can distract them and get them away. If we don’t… they’ll destroy us, and I don’t just mean the _Val Jean_. The Maquis are dwindling, we’re being killed off and shoved in penal colonies. If the Rigelians destroy us too then the Maquis are over; everything we believe in is dead. It can’t end like this. It just can’t.”

She approaches Tom, “I know you have no reason to do any of this. I know you don’t like Chakotay. But, please. If you can believe in anything,” She presses the phaser into his free hand, “Believe in me?”

Tom’s fingers wrap around the handle of the pistol, his eyes meeting hers, “I do.”

They stalk carefully along the corridors, B’Elanna explaining her plan as they go. If they can get to engineering and reroute the power supplies, they can create a ship-wide announcement, they can draw all Rigelians to one place in the ship – one of them stays in engineering, making sure their message is heard, the other at a bulkhead, where the Rigelians would meet. On the promise of what? A fight? Peace? She didn’t know what they’d believe, but if they could get them there, then they could blow up the plasma relays in the bulkhead, killing the Rigelians and leaving the rest of the ship (mostly) intact. The _Val Jean_ would be able to limp away; the Maquis could live on another day.

They arrive in engineering, B’Elanna flipping switches and adjusting dials as they make their way to the systems interface.

B’Elanna points at a switch on the system, “You need to keep this on,” She explains to Tom, “If you can keep them occupied, taunt them, offer them anything as long as it gets them to the aft bulkhead on deck three. When they’re there, you give me the signal, I shoot out the plasma relays and _boom_, that’s it. Okay?”

“Wait, no. You’re going to blow them up? Hang on, you’d die too!”

B’Elanna clenches her jaw and swallows hard, “I know.”

“I can’t let you do that. I’ll do it.”

“What, Tom? No! Absolutely not.”

“I’m going to die whatever happens here. Let me do this. Let it mean something.” Tom grabs her hands, centring her. “B’Elanna, please. Let me do this for you.”

“I can’t.” Her voice cracks.

“I’m not giving you a choice.” He looks at her and she can see something in his eyes that makes everything else disappear. He looks so determined, so focused that all she can muster in response is ‘_okay’_. More than that, there is something else; something unsaid. Her stomach ties itself in knots and she can swear she can hear; she can hear his voice telling her everything she needs to her and everything she longs for, but instead, there’s just silence.

And so, Tom leaves.

B’Elanna feels sick as she fires up the speakers, but she knows what she has to do. She knows this might be their only chance.

The shrill tone of the boatswain’s whistle echoes through the ship and B’Elanna’s plan commences.

And here she is, shouting taunts and promises and lies into the speakers, doing all she can to get the Rigelians to gather at the bulkhead. Tom should be there by now, and soon so will their hunters. It suddenly occurs to B’Elanna that she will have no idea how to tell when the Rigelians are in the correct position; she will have no way to signal Tom. She’ll just have to trust him.

Ten achingly long minutes pass as B’Elanna continues in all her might to gather the Rigelians at the bulkhead. The _Val Jean_, lacking tracking technology, leaves her rudderless. Without confirmation, all she can rely on is hope. Hope that Tom will do what’s right; hope that Tom will know and his judgement will suffice. It’s her hope that drives her, and it’s her hope that just as suddenly leaves her when she feels it.

An odd sensation passes through her body, a weightlessness that overwhelms her and dizzies her mind, and she knows, even before she hears the distant explosion, that he is gone. Her face is wet with tears she doesn’t remember crying and she thinks she might be sick. They did it. _He_ did it.

A heavy shivering breath escapes her and she sinks to the ground. He was gone. Tom was gone. It was all over. They’d won, but at what cost?

She is unsure how much time passes as she sits there, speaker abandoned; hope dead. She had been working up the courage and energy to stand up, to assess the damage, but something in her refuses to let her move. Her throat is wet and oily, her stomach flips in loops; she can barely bring herself to move before she vomits across the green engineering carpet. Shakily, she swipes the back of her hand against her mouth and, as her brain throbs violently against her skull, she hoists herself up to a semi-standing position. Her weight collapses against the console and she digs her elbows into the display, balancing herself. She waits for an announcement from the bridge – any sign of life besides her own. The doors to engineering swing open and for one blissful fleeting moment B’Elanna sees Tom and he is so beautiful. He smiles at her and everything is golden. He’s alive! He’s here, and everything is going to be okay!

A violent jolt to her hip makes her see sense. She has been shot. A Jelna man stands in the doorway. A Rigelian. Oh, God, no. It hadn’t worked. Before she can think B’Elanna pulls her phaser from her pocket and fires it in the direction of the intruder. It glows hot and heavy in her hand and electricity shoots up her firing arm. A bright light fills her vision; a screeching alarm in her ears. White hot pain sears its way through her body, ripping through her legs and torso, reaching her chest in a chokehold that exceeds anything bearable. She screams - or she thinks she does; she can no longer hear anything besides the endless whining shriek in her ears; she can no longer feel anything but the pain that erupts through her. She thinks she might go insane. She feels suddenly an odd lightness as hot, thick blood seeps out of her; then, finally, brutally, there is nothing.

*

In the final seconds before Tom Paris died he thought of many things. The main focus of these thoughts, however, was B’Elanna Torres. He saw different worlds and universes where the two of them had more time together. He saw their paths crossing at the academy, he saw them working together on a freighter ship, he saw them running into each other in a restaurant in the middle of San Francisco. He saw endless futures, endless pasts and endless presents; the two of them side-by-side through it all. The final thought that entered his mind just before he died, was that if there was one thing Tom Paris was grateful for at the end of his good for nothing sorry little life, it was that he had been able to know _her_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to sincerely thank everyone that took that time to read this and comment and give kudos; it truly means so much to me that anyone would want to read my nonsense in the first place. I genuinely, sincerely, hope you enjoyed this and even if you didn't, it means the world to me that you read it anyway. Thank you!
> 
> (Fun fact: this was originally part of a much larger Tom/B'Elanna anthology/alternate universe that explored them meeting in different scenarios - an 'always meant to meet' type story. I originally began it with an AU of them meeting at the Academy and had actually written a fair amount of this before I accidentally deleted it. Such is life!)


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